


Adversary

by Tridraconeus



Category: Warframe
Genre: Also of a sort, Crossfaction, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sickfic, Voidsickness, Vomiting, of a sort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-01-27 18:40:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21396835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tridraconeus/pseuds/Tridraconeus
Summary: Normally, his body would dematerialize and send him back to his frame. There was that feeling, of course, of sudden agony and then burning nothing, but it was always momentary.This lingered.
Comments: 31
Kudos: 59





	1. Infection

**Author's Note:**

> Yall: Draco why do you keep writing about gross stuff  
Me: I’m exploring a theme ok  
Voidsickness is a disease that I made up.  
Updates on Mondays or whenever I want until complete.

Normally, his body would dematerialize and send him back to his frame. There was that feeling, of course, of sudden agony and then burning nothing, but it was always momentary.

This lingered.

Then, as it not only remained but intensified, he realized he wasn’t in his frame— he’d collapsed onto his back, loose-limbed and trembling. His lich was _right there_.

One more hit was all it would take. Just one more good hit to break him apart and send him back. There would be static, of course, an odd and clinging sensation that made him feel slow and sickly, but only for a few moments.

Makto paused instead, letting his Karak fall to his side.

Of all the times to decide not to kill him! Nitzan cried out and tried to provoke him, ending up succeeding only in increasing his own pain. They had an audience, now, the lich, his lieutenant, and a few other Grineer ringing the makeshift arena. Nitzan was left there on the ground for a full minute, whimpering and twitching, before Makto realized the battle was truly over.

“Where has your fight gone, Adversary?” The lich stalked over to him, Kuva-strained voice scratchy and low. Nitzan could barely react; his head was spinning and splitting, the rest of his body stiffened in staticky confusion. Makto stopped at his side, standing over him as if waiting for him to snarl; curl his lips back to show his teeth and unleash a counterattack; but Nitzan didn’t.

The lich leaned down to grab him and pull him up by the front of his vest. “I should bring you back as a spoil of war.” He examined Nitzan’s wide eyes, the agonized twist of his face, a sharp edge of amusement clinging to the usual roughness of his voice. “I could keep you on my galleon as a footstool.”

He let Nitzan hang for a few more moments as if he were expecting him to retaliate.

Nitzan should have, but couldn’t, and didn’t want to— he would have gladly let the lich use him as furniture if it meant the awful, repressive sensation keeping him limp and disoriented went away.

Whether the lich realized that or not, he picked up that Nitzan wasn’t going to defend himself and lowered him back to the ground, though he did not release him.

“You are a worthy Adversary. I’d hate to see you die like a drugged kubrow.”

Nitzan would hate to _experience_ dying like a drugged kubrow, he agreed. He didn’t answer— he was too busy trying to remember to breathe instead of scream.

“I won’t leave you here.”

Wait, what? He couldn’t make any noises besides the ones already coming out of him— pain. Confusion, and fear, intensifying by degrees when Makto picked him up again.

“Is everything in order, captain?” Someone, distantly, speaking clearly. High-level. It must be the lieutenant. Nitzan tried to move, and couldn’t. He tried to sink into the Void, and the impulse immediately hurt, sent him crying out and making weak thrashing movements that did nothing to dislodge Makto’s grip. The grip was sure, but the tightness of it spoke of unease. Nitzan couldn’t place it— not concern. Not worry. Something else.

“Something is wrong with my Adversary,” Makto growled. Nitzan half expected to be shaken, but Makto was holding him still as if he knew how much pain movement caused.

Maybe he just didn’t care.

Makto lifted him fully and set him over his shoulders, one arm over a leg and the other securing one of Nitzan’s arms on the other side of his body, like Nitzan was a lost lamb, or maybe a side of meat.

“Are you sure this is safe?” Nitzan could agree with Makto’s lieutenant. This was not safe, for him or anyone, and it was shameful and agonizing besides. Makto snarled— snarled!— at his lieutenant.

“He is my Adversary. I will deal with him.”

The lieutenant took another look at Nitzan, now trying and failing to retch, judged him harmless, and turned to snap a command to the troops milling about in the hallways.

The return to the galleon went quickly, periods of blinding pain interspersed with insensate darkness. Every step Makto took made his body shake— the Void inside of him was revolting.

Makto slowed down eventually, and so Nitzan was able to lift the shroud of pain for just long enough to actually see where they were going.

Nitzan vaguely recognized the place as a Grineer brig. He’d broken into more than his fair share of them, usually at the behest of Cressa Tal, and this one didn’t appear to be much of a challenge.

Wouldn’t have been much of a challenge if he wasn’t in his state. As it was, he couldn’t even free himself from over Makto’s shoulders. He drifted in and out of focused vision for the next few seconds, too disoriented to try anything, and only realized he’d been put down when Makto pushed him fully onto the metal cot of the cell.

If he was in slightly less pain, he might have thought to transfer back to his frame.

He didn’t, though, just trembled where he’d been put as Makto shut and locked the door.

His body was maintained almost entirely by the Void; he didn’t need to eat or sleep, or do any of the things that came with eating or sleeping. Still, his body could react. He was crying; there were tears, stinging and hot against his cheeks and eyelids. It felt like something was writhing under his skin. He wished there was something for his stomach to throw up, despite knowing it wouldn’t help.

Makto came to check on him intermittently, sometimes accompanied by his lieutenant or another relatively high-ranking officer. They said some things to each other and left, and Makto usually said something to him, but he was far from being able to decipher it. Sometimes Makto touched the metal of his somatics, or the furrows in his skin from where Void energy burned him from the inside out; it caused the pain to intensify every time, sending him into involuntary fits of thrashing, and then spasms when he became weaker. When he wasn’t too agonized to acknowledge Makto’s presence, he begged him to kill him; when he was too agonized to recognize if he was alone or not, he was begging to die regardless.

Trying to, at least. He was mainly making crying and keening noises.

Some time after his last visit, longer than usual, Makto opened the door and came in. He shut it behind himself and came to the side of Nitzan’s cot, surveying his state and finding him predictably insensate.

The situation was novel enough for Nitzan to be half-paying attention. He was surely so hoarse from screaming that Makto couldn’t hear anything but reedy, breathy whimpers.

Makto pulled something out of his hip bag— it was cube-shaped, covered in a blue-and-black grid design. Corpus manufacturing data sat on the top edge.

A nullifier device that normally would be attached to a drone, Nitzan fuzzily recognized, but was in too much pain to do anything about. Makto set it on the cell cot next to Nitzan and hit some sort of button on the side of it, to which it responded with a small, buzzing hum and by generating the hated blue energy field that was responsible for so much frustration. It enveloped him quickly— Nitzan usually escaped the radius of the field as soon as possible, because it didn’t feel _good_ to be in, but he couldn’t do that here. He hadn’t really been reacting to much lately, just kind of squirming and crying, but he certainly reacted to the field.

It was far from a powerful or firm rejection; all he could do was make a pitiful wailing noise and pitch on the metal cot. He was upset but unsurprised when it made him hurt worse.

In response, Makto put a hand on his chest to hold him down. Then, his arm; squeezing, not punitively, but securely.

Nitzan was glad he’d never lingered in the crackling expanse of a nullifier field for very long before. His skin was starting to smoke— blue-white wisps curling up into the field and dissipating, tingling and stinging at their origin, a sensation he knew was happening more than felt. Everything else hurt too much to register it.

His stomach started to turn again. The pain was cresting. What he’d gone through the previous few days— days? Had it been _days_— felt like nothing compared to this. Something was moving in him, pushing upwards, pulsing against his sternum and then his throat. He swallowed frantically, uselessly, body given over to aimless spasms and jerks. If he’d been more in control of himself, he would have reached over to grab the nullifier device.

Makto wouldn’t have let him, of course, but it would have been better than this.

The twisting, rising feeling of something in his body eventually gave way, and he retched; he recognized what came out as Void energy, in the way he could recognize a limb in the dark as belonging to himself. It was vibrant blues, blacks and whites, lustrous and inky. It was awful and viscous. As soon as it left his mouth it turned into more of the same stuff that was evaporating off of him and disappeared into the air.

Again, distantly, he noticed that he was crying. Each new purge brought a fresh crop of trembling and wailing. Makto was squeezing his arm periodically, and while the slight pressure didn’t distract him much it made the experience the tiniest bit less horrifying.

He had to go through five more repetitions of that awful experience, his guts turning in on themselves and his body rejecting the long-festering Void energy, but when it was done it was done so quickly as if it had never happened. As the last torrent of luminous sickness poured from his throat, the pain ebbed. His mind sharpened. He stopped thrashing and let himself lay on the hard metal of the cot.

He wasn’t crying anymore, just breathing very slowly. The nullifier field was oppressive, but no longer painful. If not for Makto’s hand still on his arm he could almost believe that he was laying in Steel Meridian’s enclave chatting with one of the defectors.

Once assured that he was no longer going to thrash or vomit, Makto turned off the nullifier device and removed his hand. The nullifier device went into a bag around his waist; he tugged Nitzan’s shoulder to make him sit up.

Nitzan wavered a little bit but managed to stay seated. That would be embarrassing— less or more than screaming and crying in front of his enemy?— and more weakness than he could bear to show right now.

He couldn’t even _look_ at Makto. He was tired, though. Maybe that was it.

“I...” Void, his voice was little more than a croak.

“Hush, Adversary.” Makto told him with surprising compassion. Or maybe Nitzan just wanted to hear compassion. He wasn’t sure— it was hard to tell. Makto put two fingers under his chin to lift his head, almost gentle. He was looking for something. Nitzan wasn’t sure what, and didn’t have enough curiosity about how bad he surely must look to ask. He looked to the side instead, avoiding eye contact. Pathetic. “You were sick.”

“Wouldn’t it have been safer to—?” He mimed smashing a head in. It would have made his suffering end _much_ more quickly. Makto pushed his hands down.

“You have fought with honor. I want to kill you with honor. Not like that.”

“Aren’t you worried I’ll try to hurt you?” And he could, probably. The Void thrummed within him again as it should, no longer twisted and curdled. Makto laughed.

“You’ll never defeat me— least of all in _this_ shameful state.”

Right. Like it or not, Nitzan believed him. “So it was pity.”

“You will face me at your best, and be unsuccessful even then.”

“Well, aren’t you a big fluffy kubrodon.” Nitzan tried and failed to not sound bitter.

Makto’s voice twisted, considerate. “Perhaps I liked you better that way.”

It was Nitzan’s turn to laugh, but it soured soon enough. “You’re wrong, though.”

Makto must have caught on that Nitzan was feeling reflective— a sharp sort of reflective, where he could turn it outside of him and onto others, but was much more likely to just hurt himself. He leaned in the slightest bit. “Hm?”

“There’s no room for honor left in the Tenno way.”

Makto shook his head and pushed Nitzan back by the shoulder, barely anything but enough to send him back to the cot. He whuffed out a breath and sat up, by himself this time, swatting away Makto’s hand when he tried to do it again.

“Be glad I don’t believe you.”


	2. Corpus Cells

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After leaving the galleon, Nitzan avoided any spots tinged with Makto’s influence. It felt wrong and uncomfortable; and he felt pathetic. He spent a month defending a distant colony. When he returned, he had a few mocking transmissions, but nothing else. He ignored the last one to come in a day after his return and turned instead to raising a kavat and teaching it how to kill Chargers on Eris, sending the fully-trained beast off to another Tenno who would benefit from a hunting companion more than he would.
> 
> Another month passed and he was left blissfully alone. It felt empty, almost, but he ignored that and focused on what felt good about it instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nitzan is a lot of things. Smart is not one of them.

After leaving the galleon, Nitzan avoided any spots tinged with Makto’s influence. It felt wrong and uncomfortable; and he felt pathetic. He spent a month defending a distant colony. When he returned, he had a few mocking transmissions, but nothing else. He ignored the last one to come in a day after his return and turned instead to raising a kavat and teaching it how to kill Chargers on Eris, sending the fully-trained beast off to another Tenno who would benefit from a hunting companion more than he would.

Another month passed and he was left blissfully alone. It felt empty, almost, but he ignored that and focused on what felt good about it instead.

It took a slow day for him to decide to check on Makto’s whereabouts on a whim. Maybe he’d moved on— chosen some other Tenno to harass. Nitzan would like to see that, and maybe send the poor bastard his condolences as well.

Instead, his coordinates were on Neptune; a Corpus planet, in the Triton quadrant, which Nitzan recognized readily enough as nothing but barren, isolated jail outposts.

So he’d been captured, and he’d been quiet not because he’d gotten bored but because he’d been imprisoned.

_ Serves him right _ , Nitzan thought, and then  _ I still owe him _ .

He was good at breaking operatives out of Corpus prisons. What about clunky, cocky Grineer?

It was a bad idea. He set off as the clock turned.

The prison was quiet and isolated, not just because it was freezing. It relied on altitude, below-zero temperatures, and isolation to keep its prisoners contained; wardens were either zealous or being punished. Nitzan dispatched three of them with expertise, sliding in through the vents to reach the cell block.

Only three were online. Typical— Corpus didn’t like to store high-value prisoners all in one place, and usually they just executed criminals on the spot.

He freed Makto within the minute, and alarms didn’t even ring. He’d been sitting at the furthest end of the cell, looking far too big for it— energy cuffs around his wrists and ankles, and around his neck. He couldn’t stand. He couldn’t even _ lay down _ . Nitzan’s stomach turned. When the door finished opening all the way, Makto looked up, body language tense and aggressive, but it shifted into confusion when he saw Nitzan.

“Tenno?”

It only took some judicious application of his parazon to snap the energy cuffs open. If he jammed it into the keyhole at the right angle, the sparking current from the blade short-circuited the locking mechanism and made the cuffs fall open, unsalvageable. He stepped back and out of the cell, looking around for guards— there were none. They were laying dead outside in the snow. Then, he transferred out. He didn’t need to, but he wanted to say something. He didn’t need to say something.

He was being stupid. Makto was rubbing his wrists and sizing him up with a critical, wary eye.

“Oh, so it’s Tenno now?”

Makto shook his head. “Were you paid?”

Tenno could be mercenaries, that was true, but Nitzan was still mildly stung by the accusation. “No. I did it because I owed you a favor. We’re even now.”

Makto laughed, which thankfully sounded more at the situation in general and less at him. Nitzan wrinkled his nose regardless. “And you say Tenno have no  _ honor _ .”

“It’s not honor.” He didn’t want to think that  _ maybe _ it was. He definitely could have gone for a killing blow while Makto was restrained, and he’d chosen to free him instead— he had the right Requiem. He knew the hymn that would lead to Makto’s death. He’d  _ freed _ him. Foolish Tenno, indeed.

“Are you coming with me?” To extraction, clear but unsaid. Nitzan shook his head, crossed his arms, short well of goodwill exhausted already.

“I opened the damn door. That’s enough.”

Makto laughed again. He waved Nitzan off and walked toward a communications console.

He was free. Nitzan’s debt was repaid. He slid back down the vents and bounded to extraction, putting the whole experience behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> but we love him for it!


	3. Drift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He knew what Makto had been looking for that first time now; a film of the Void across his eyes. It started infinitesimally thin, growing by degrees so slight as to be unnoticeable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also I really appreciate how the Rising Tide quest is (spoilers) helping an old man process his survivor's guilt and PTSD. I love Cy, I'm about a day and a half away from completing the quest (Waiting times, man!) and I hope we can help him.

“Do you still have that...”

Makto leaned against the wall, Karak at his hip, waiting for Nitzan to speak. He must have noticed how bad Nitzan looked— his eyes had gone almost completely black, shadowed over by the Void, and he couldn’t even stand straight without thinking about it. He knew what Makto had been looking for that first time now; a film of the Void across his eyes. It started infinitesimally thin, growing by degrees so slight as to be unnoticeable.

“What is it, Tenno? Spit it out.”

Asking for help stuck in his throat. He crossed his arms and wiped his mouth— he halfway expected to see Void gunk smeared on the back of his hand. Still, speaking up was better than the inevitable pain he’d be in if he didn’t.

“The nullifier device?”

Makto nodded. “I held onto it. Useful little thing. Why? Are you in need of it?” His voice dipped into a nearly suggestive tone. Nitzan would have laughed if he wasn’t already hurting. By the Void, he should have just tried to steal the thing or taken one off of a nullifier unit.

“Yeah.” Then, in case Makto wanted him to debase himself at all, “please.”

Makto didn’t  _ look _ like he’d expected Nitzan to beg. He straightened, taking in Nitzan’s disheveled appearance properly, and gestured to him.

“Come here, Adversary.” Makto fished around in his hip bag for a few seconds before drawing out the nullifier device. Nitzan couldn’t keep himself from curling his lip; he glared at the thing for a moment and then glared at Makto. He closed the distance until he was almost close enough for Makto to touch him. Then, he knelt. The alloy floor was hard against his knees. He bowed his head, staring at his hands in his lap. It was either this or suffer more.

“I’m ready.”

Makto paced a circle around him before placing the nullifier device down a mere foot in front of him. He flipped it on; the scintillating web of energy sprung out and expanded. Almost immediately the bunched-up, blocked-off Void channels reacted to the aversive energy.

Nitzan didn’t even bother fighting. He collapsed as soon as the urge struck him, falling onto his side and curling his knees up. The pain wasn’t so bad this time. Perhaps because he was used to it, or the Voidsickness  _ itself _ wasn’t so severe. He could feel the Void energy dissipating off of his skin, a stinging and tingling sensation almost like sunburn. 

Makto had sat down next to him, he dully noticed, and the next second was reaching to pull him over with hands under his arms like he was a kavat kit. He was set with his head propped on Makto’s crossed legs, Makto’s hands on his shoulders to hold him down. The new position did help, in a way— he immediately started to puke his metaphorical guts out with gouts of thick, inky-black Void-manifest. They sizzled and wisped away in the nullifier field.

The purge waned for a few moments, giving him the opportunity to fuss and shift. Makto gave his shoulders a squeeze.

“Better out than in, Adversary.”

_ Adversary _ again. Not Tenno. Nitzan would puzzle out how he felt about that later.

“Yeah,” he murmured, glad it wasn’t quite so agonizing this time, and promptly puked again. With the weight of Makto’s hands on his shoulders to keep him from flopping about like a shocked servofish, the cycle of building and purging became almost meditative; Nitzan wasn’t disconnected from the pain, but the regularity of it was easier to handle and prepare for. It still hurt. He still cried out.

When it was all over, Makto turned off the nullifier device. Nitzan didn’t move.

He was drained, first and foremost. Secondly, he wanted to see what Makto would do.

He let him lay there. He kept a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t try to hurt or humiliate him.

It was strange, but not bad.

“Why are you doing this?” He asked finally, voice hoarse from his previous ordeal. Makto hummed.

“Why do you come to me? Surely you would have found an ally to do the same service.”

Nitzan grumbled. If it were any more uncomfortable to think about, he would have moved; but his body was heavy with exhaustion, and Makto was obligingly keeping still for Nitzan to lay on him.

“You’re honorable. You won’t kill me when I’m weak.” Then, he scoffed. “And the less people who know about...  _ this _ , the better.”

Makto laughed. He flexed his hand and patted Nitzan’s cheek. Even when he was being friendly, he was a condescending ass. If Nitzan ever got the drop on  _ him _ for a change he’d be sure to take him down a few pegs. Even dying didn’t keep the bastard down for very long, though. Nitzan would have to settle for stealing back the stuff Makto had stolen from him— that  _ he’d _ stolen from the Corpus, most of the time. 

“I have to keep my Adversary healthy and happy if I want to vanquish him properly, don’t I?”

That made Nitzan laugh, a hitching and hoarse noise. Abrupt. Surprised. Pleased? Amused, he settled on. Makto  _ did _ try to be funny, every now and then. “Healthy? Happy? What am I, a pet kubrow?”

“With how willingly you lay on my lap, I ask the same question.”

“You put me here,” he grumbled, but made no move to shift away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love kudos! I love comments! Please tell Nitzan he's an idiot. Also, I finally encountered all the weird... flirty?... voicelines for liches.


	4. Cresting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’d managed to avoid letting his transference-body get hit and therefore be launched into an awful cycle of agony and delirium again; he knew he couldn’t do it forever.  
He knew also, by now, that Makto truly wasn’t going to attack him when he was in this state. He didn’t know what to think about that, really, but was grateful for it. Maybe he’d set this trap for Nitzan to attack him, but the larger possibility was that he hoped Nitzan would be incapacitated by the Void again and wanted to lord it over him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sb: hey nitzan how did you convert YOUR lich  
nitzan: sheer pathos

Makto had stolen a small fortune of mixed alloys that Nitzan had put ages into stealing. It was a little each time, stretched over weeks of missions, but it was high time to infiltrate his galleon again and steal some of it back. 

He anticipated Makto being on alert after having not seen hide nor hair of him for a long time. 

He didn’t anticipate Makto knowing why— he should have. He was hiding behind a pillar, Loki comfortably invisible, as the lich stalked the empty cargo hold. _ A trap. _ The other hold likely had his things, but Makto’s troops were on high alert and sweeping the galleon. The alarm was going, filtered to slight acknowledgement of sound through Loki’s sensors. If he transferred out, Nitzan wasn’t sure he’d be able to hear it at all; just a low, thrumming pulse of the Void.

“Come out, my little Adversary.” Makto spoke, not a normal taunting sing-song, into the darkness of the cargo room. “I know it’s been a while since you’ve had your... treatment.”

Nitzan hated to admit that he was right. The buildup of Void-manifest that he couldn’t purge properly himself had reached surely overwhelming levels; his eyes had gone from darkened to black nearly a week ago, and just yesterday had started, tearlike, dripping a black ichorous fluid that wisped away into nothing. His nose had started doing the same thing three days ago. It bubbled in his throat whenever he tried to speak. He’d managed to avoid letting his transference-body get hit and therefore be launched into an awful cycle of agony and delirium again; he knew he couldn’t do it forever.

He knew also, by now, that Makto truly wasn’t going to attack him when he was in this state. He didn’t know what to think about that, really, but was grateful for it. Maybe he’d set this trap for Nitzan to attack him, but the larger possibility was that he hoped Nitzan would be incapacitated by the Void again and wanted to lord it over him. To help him. To hold him when he was weak, and purge the curdled Void, making up some intricate reason for having treated Nitzan with anything other than cruelty after. Nitzan knew how this worked. Makto liked to have one of the Origin System’s most feared operatives in his debt and Nitzan liked stealing his shit, and until Nitzan got lucky and beat him down enough to stab him with his parazon, things would stay that way.

He transferred out of Loki and slipped into the Void, the process as easy and natural as breathing. Now, his breath fought for space with clinging black gunk. He blinked a few times to clear his vision, ultimately failing; everything was dim and shrouded because his eyes were completely filmed with the stuff. His tear ducts were constantly leaking. It didn’t taste like anything, but occasionally he found himself drooling Void-manifest. More commonly, it would escape him on an exhale, like his lungs were full of smoke.

He finally left the Void when he saw the fuzzy outline of Makto ahead of him. He moved toward it, steady for the first couple of steps, but he hadn’t made himself go so far in this state unless it was in the Orbiter where he could stop, and lean on something, and _ rest_. He got up to Makto and tried to say something, managing only a drowned-sounding noise, and collapsed onto his knees.

_ Void, _he just wanted to be free of it. His body listed forwards, then backwards, then forwards again until he leaned against something cold and solid. The metal of Makto’s armored legs, his mind identified even though his eyes were muzzy and useless. Makto touched the back of his head, and normally he’d balk at the touch, but everything else was too fuzzy to pay much attention to; the brush of his fingers was anchoring. He was glad for it.

“Let’s go somewhere more private than this.”

He leaned down and picked Nitzan up, this time maneuvering him to hold him with one arm under his back and the other under his knees. The movements jostled, but never enough to hurt and send him spiraling down into agony. He let himself go lax, leaning into Makto in an attempt to make himself less unwieldy to ferry.

“My poor Adversary. I will make you suffer, but it will be _ me,_ not some cheap trick of the Void.”

Nitzan should not have been comforted by that. Makto _ did _ make him suffer— broke him over and over when he hesitated to strike him down.

He took no pleasure in kicking Nitzan when he was already down. That was a small mercy.

A large mercy that he felt driven to do something about it. Nitzan groaned and shifted in Makto’s grip, coughing up a smoky mass of Void-manifest that dissipated into nothing shortly after. Makto stopped walking when they reached a closed-off barracks, sitting down with Nitzan still arranged across him. He maneuvered him carefully, helped him sit up, then laid him down again on the barrack bunk.

He heard the clicking noise of the nullifier device engaging and hunched his shoulders. He hated the thing, even knowing he owed his recoveries to it— and he _ needed _ it, because while he felt the staticky field engulf him all he could see was hazy darkness.

Makto put a broad hand on his shoulder, fingers spanning to his chest. Despite himself, he whimpered, waiting for the inevitable twisting sensation and the purges. There was a building pain, Makto shifting to get into a position to hold him down, and then his world dissolved into white, blinding agony.

He surfaced near the end, when it was just spits of Void-manifest leaving his throat in syncopated, hiccupy coughs. Makto was holding him down by the shoulders again— he was crying. What might have passed for tears were ichor-black, dissolving and dissipating. He felt much lighter than he had before; but cold, and raw.

When he finally laid still Makto turned off the nullifier device. He patted his shoulders.

“No more tears, my Adversary.”

Nitzan sighed, pleased that it came without bubbling or pain. “I hope so.”

“You were talking,” Makto finally said after a long few moments of silence. Nitzan looked up at him, managing a confused noise in lieu of actually asking for clarification. “What were the monsters?”

“The what?” 

“About halfway through, you started talking about monsters in human skin.” Makto waited to see if Nitzan would respond, and continued when he didn’t. “Stalking the ship.”

Nitzan winced. It would be easy to lie and make up some Void-wrought terror; he knew he should.

“Do you know how the Tenno were created?” He broached instead, quietly as if to be able to pull the words back. Makto shook his head. They both knew that this was wrong-- Nitzan should leave. He should go back to pretending this never happened. 

He told Makto, instead, stared up at the ceiling and tried not to think too hard.

He didn’t want to move, but knew he was expected to return to his own ship. Makto would hunt him down when the urge struck him or Nitzan annoyed him enough, or else Nitzan would sneak onboard his galleon again in an attempt to win back his stolen items. That was how these things went. It was a familiar routine.

Nitzan wanted to look around a bit before he left, and what Makto didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

“Please. I’m...” Makto looked down at him. Nitzan tucked his face in the crook of his elbow, forcing his breathing to steady. “I’m so tired. Let me stay for a little.”

He knew Makto liked that— aside from honorably letting him stand back up to be struck down properly, liked to watch him cringe away and try to crawl when he’d almost, but not quite, been damaged beyond bleedout. He liked to see him worn down, with his exhaustion on display.

It worked. Makto put a hand on his shoulder and sat next to him.

“You may stay for a few moments.”

He didn’t expect him to do _ that. _ Still, he closed his eyes and let his consciousness transfer to Loki, activating his invisibility and prowling through the galleon in search of some reward to steal for himself.

He stayed partially in himself, though, to feel Makto’s heavy hand on his shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: ohey it's over!  
me: oh it's. over

**Author's Note:**

> Crossfaction/sickfic/hurt+comfort. We are approaching my ideal aesthetic.  
Comments and kudos appreciated! They fuel me.


End file.
